Classification

We have been seeing a lot of adult dragonflies and damselflies on the reserve - especially around the pond and I have seen occasional sightings through the ditch cam. Damselflies and dragonflies belong to the same group of insects and share the same general features. There are several things you can look for to help you [...]

Today we added a new pond creature to our list of animals observed through the webcams. Attached to the housing of our pond cam Paul spotted a beautiful green and rather amazing Hydra. On the screen it looks huge but it’s only about a cm in length. Paul has changed the focus of the camera [...]

We have been seeing some very interesting views of sticklebacks through pond cam and Heart of Reeds cam. Sticklebacks are very hardy little fish that are often found in ponds and ditches. There are two different types on the reserve, three-spined stickleback and the less common ten-spined stickle back. The three-spined stickleback is the most common species [...]

Pond cam has being providing views of how rich the life is in the woodland pond. Some of the pond life is quite large, such as the fish and the newts. But some of it is very tiny, too small to see in detail but you can see lots of tiny creatures swimming in front of [...]

We have been seeing some great views of waterfowl through the ditch cam and Winterbourne stream cam. There are 3 main species of water fowl that we regularly seen on the nature reserve. These are the moorhen, coot and mallard. Coots and moorhen are not ducks but belong to a group of birds known called Rails. [...]

Frogs and toads look quite similar so here are a few tips, to help you tell the differences between a common frog and a common toad. Firstly, the skin of a frog is quite smooth while toads have bumpy ‘warty’ skin. A frog’s skin also appears wet and slimy [...]

One of the big wildlife events of the year in the ponds and ditches is the arrival of common frogs, following their winter hibernation. Frogs spend most of their life on land, but when they awaken from hibernation they feed and then head off to the pond and ditches to mate. The frogs feed using [...]

You may have noticed through our pond cam that there are lots of tiny creatures swimming about. Most of these are tiny freshwater crustaceans called daphnia and cyclops. These tiny creatures are very important as they are food for many of the fish, newts and other animals that live in pond. As the pond water [...]

You may have noticed that we have been having a lot of activity on the bird feeder. To help you identify the birds you are seeing there is a picture below of the 4 main types of bird coming to the bird feeder, great tit, blue tit, house sparrow and great spotted woodpecker. You can [...]

One of my favourite visitors to the bird feeder is the great spotted woodpecker. In the woodland, views are restricted to a quick flash of black and white as it flies past, or the distant drumming. Small air pockets in the skull help cushion the impact as the woodpecker strikes the tree with its beak [...]